


The Road Not Taken

by SleepyDragon19



Category: Dominion (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Girl!Alex, Humour, Poor Gabriel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-02-26 06:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2642204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepyDragon19/pseuds/SleepyDragon19
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a universe where Alex Lannon was born a girl everything is different. </p><p>Or; before going on his holidays, a less misogynistic God decided that he was fed up with leaving the fate of the universe in the hands of men and that it was time for gender equality. The world will never be the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Never Smile at a Crocodile

Alex was laughing.

Whatever Gabriel had been expecting after his masterpiece of sophistry it was not for the chosen one to burst into laughter and start snorting inelegantly as she tried (and failed) to get her amusement under control.

“Is that…(chortle, splutter) what you really…(giggle) think? (snort) Honestly? You really don’t have a (howl of laughter) clue, do you?”(snort, hiccup, giggle)

Distinctly nonplussed by this unexpected turn of events the Archangel turned to look at his two fellow angels in the hope that at least one of them would have a clue what was going on. Two bemused stares met his and that particular hope gave it up as a lost cause and crept off to die an embarrassed death.

It was times like this that Gabriel found himself missing his brother the most. Humans had never made a tremendous amount of sense to him but this was bordering on the ridiculous. Where was the fear? Where was the awe? Where was the respect? And failing those three, Gabriel would take not being laughed at by a creature who was little further along the evolutionary path than an ape.

This was their chosen one? Their salvation? Saint’s preserve us all.  

He bet Michael didn’t have to put up with this insolent irreverence.

It might have reassured his fellow Archangel to know that actually this was exactly what Michael had had to put up with on a regular basis for the last twenty odd years. Divine power and authority meant little to a girl whose skin shone with mythical semi-sentient green ink and who had spent the formative years of her life with a man who thought shooting eight-balls was a recreational hobby and an Archangel who she regularly coerced into joining her imaginary friends for tea parties. Alex might have outgrown the enjoyment of persuading the stoic angel (who had almost been a fixture at her house he spent so much time there) into playing all manner of humiliating games with her (including on one memorable occasion dressing up as a fairy princess so that little Alex could rescue him from the fell clutches of the demon tree in her back garden) but she had not lost the verve and indomitable spirit which had led her into more trouble and high-jinks over the years than Michael cared to remember.   

Furiad, apparently fed up with being ignored by the little ingrate in front of him, grabbed the girl by the collar of blouse she was wearing, shaking her as he demanded “you will answer the lord Gabriel’s question”.

The howling laughter stopped. Gabriel almost wished she’d start it again if the alternative was the clear, icy stare she was levelling at the three angels as an unaccustomed chill ran down his spine.

“I wasn’t aware there was a question in that spiel for me to answer” was the chosen one’s caustic response as she looked assessingly at her three would be kidnappers before snorting again as her amusement threatened to get the best of her self-control once more.

“Dude, you’re sooooo screwed if that was the best you can come up with. I mean, ten out of ten for that speech – if you ever go into politics you’ll be a huge hit. You almost had me at the ‘divine instrument’ bit; and all that touching stuff about finding a new family and avenging the wrongs that have been done against me brought a tear to my eye, it really did, but if that’s the best you’ve got I suggest you give me a lift back to my bed, take a time out and get back to me when you’ve had a rethink. If we could get a shift on with this little pow-wow so that I'm back before Michael realises I'm not where I'm supposed to be and we all end up dealing with one of his tantrums that would be awesome”. 

The three angels shuddered as they remembered the last time their brother had been annoyed before looking at each other askance; this was not how they have envisaged this meeting going.

The tattoo wearing young woman looked expectantly at her angelic abductors before deciding that as all three of the angels appeared to have temporarily lost the power of speech it was up to her to carry the conversation in the hope that she would eventually hit on the magic phrase that would get them to take her home before her possessive, hyper-protective boyfriend worked out where she was and came to get her...probably with swords out and an accompaniment of AAG (anti-angel gun) totting commandos in his wake. Not only would this eventuality be an embarrassing affront to feminism in perpetuating the cliché of the damsel in distress needing to be rescued by a retinue of borderline suicidal, testosterone fuelled men but it would almost certainly end in her being locked in Michael's tower again and her having to find _yet_ _another_ way of escaping the skyscraper with nothing but the silk bedsheets and a bar of soap. 

“I get it, I do. It’s the first time daddy’s left you alone since your creation/birth, whatever, and you’re having, like, a massive attack of separation anxiety. It’s perfectly normal. And normally, I’d be all cool and understanding about your unhealthy obsession with my tats somehow saving the multi-verse – but you kidnapped me from my bed and taken me to the butt-fuck of nowhere in the middle of the night, when I’ve got to be up at the crack of dawn to guard Consul Whele from the dangers of his fruit bowl, in order to try and convince me that a friendly bit of mass extermination is the answer to all the world’s problems. And while I can sort of see your point about Whele, and I could quite happily live in a world without him and his creepy stalker son, I really don’t think that murdering the rest of my species is going to convince the great sky daddy to come back from his summer holidays.”

Observing that her three wannabe kidnappers were looking increasingly lost and uncertain in their angelic stone faced sort of a way, Alex blithely continued her quest for utter confusion.

“You know, most kids when their parents go away on holiday without them or if they feel like they’re being ignored act out. Normally, they just organise a rave and drink their parent’s booze. But you? What’s the first thing you do when you’re on your own? You go and start a war to try and get his attention again. Totally understandable response to being abandoned – Freud would have had an absolute field day with you…well once he got passed the bit about you being the universe’s oldest teenagers, the killer wings, and your razor-edge psychopathic tendencies towards genocide that is. I understand from some of the older folks that there used to be this thing called therapy where people with issues went to get rid of their problems…well there was before and your charming cohorts decided to exterminate humanity and killed them all – now we just have to deal with our issues through sex, drugs and random acts of graffiti.”

“Therapy? You think I need Therapy? Me? The Archangel Gabriel” the archangel spluttered indignantly.

Alex stared at him for a moment before replying placidly “dude… let’s put it this way. When my dad abandoned me on the streets so that I would be ‘safe’ my first response wasn’t to try and kill an entire species or start a war so that he would come back again. Granted, I was eleven at the time so starting a war might have been a bit beyond my scope - but you get my point – if you’ve got daddy issues go and take it up with him; steal his secret stash of cosmic chocolate or start a new rival religion or something, just don’t take it out on his other kids cause we’re just as angry and screwed as you are”.

Gabriel very much didn’t get the young saviour’s point. In fact, he had this nauseating feeling like he had somehow been dropped into an alternate universe where nothing made any sense.

Nothing was going according to the plan and it had been such a good plan too: he and his trusted lieutenants would kidnap the unsuspecting chosen one while Michael was distracted by something that the young Whele had set up (check). They would then bring her to a secret hide out (check), wake her up (check) at which point Gabriel would introduce himself and his fellow angels to her (check) and then start a charm offensive to persuade the young lady to his side of the war.

How exactly Gabriel was going to convert the uppity young miss in front of him had always been something of a grey area. He (and his siblings) had assumed that it would be fairly straightforward. Michael, never one for details or people he couldn’t sleep with, would most likely have had little to do with the chosen one while growing up. The sudden revelation that this humble and abused V2 was actually the prophesised chosen one would have obviously sent the young woman into a crisis of confidence as everything she thought she knew collapsed around her as she realised that the injustices and deprivation she had had to face all her life had been forced on her by the very people (and angel) who were now expecting her to want to save them. Injustice was an excellent starting point for drawing out the latent, alienating resentment that every downtrodden person feels, but the pièce de résistance, the great turning point, the ultimate weapon in Gabriel’s arsenal was his brother Michael.

What better way was there to bind the chosen one to you than by making her love you and given Michael’s propensity for indulging in sins of the flesh there was a very good chance that he would have sought to tie the girl to him by sleeping with her.

A few innuendo laden comments during his speech about the right side of the war and fighting on the side of the angels was all it took to confirm that, yes, the chosen one was sleeping with Michael and was, if not actually in love with him, then well on her way to being so.

Love was such a human concept. Gabriel had been fascinated for years by these mortal creatures’ ability to bind themselves to each other through emotion and metal tokens. Angel’s didn’t feel love in the same way as humans. Whether it was because of their immortality or just another example of the great cosmic injustice their Father had visited upon them it was practically unheard of for an Angel to fall in love (well, there was that one angel…but no one talked about him and he had always been something of an oddball anyway).

They could care for each other greatly (as Furiad was reminded after his ill-advised attack on Michael) but love as a human would understand it was not something an Angel understood or felt and this was the wedge he would use to drive the young saviour away from his brother. It wouldn’t even be that difficult. Michael left a trail of broken human hearts wherever he went and the newest one was Senator Becca Thorn. How easy it would be to make Alex doubt the angel she had placed her faith in. All Gabriel would need to do was be sympathetic and apologetic for his polygamously hedonistic brother as he made Alex see that Michael didn’t love her. It wouldn’t even be a lie – which would make it all the easier. And in her rage at this betrayal Alex would turn to him for guidance and revenge against those who had hurt her and now sought to use her.

It was a tried and true strategy. Lucifer had been using it for eons with great success and there had been (before he had set Hollywood on fire and razed it to the ground) an entire film industry based on this sort of plot.

Unfortunately, nowhere in this plan had Gabriel factored in the immutable force of nature that was Alexandra Lannon.  

Hence the laughter.

And the realisation that smacked into the archangel with all the force of a high speed train - this would have been so much easier if Alex had just been born a man


	2. Not Your Average Hero (part 1) What Once was Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Huh” came a slightly bewildered voice “I’d wondered where those had got to".

The room was completely silent.

Which given that a man had just been stabbed in the stomach by an angel masquerading as a small boy in the care of the Helena delegation, and the ongoing general cluster-fuck currently tearing Vega apart, was quite surprising.

The reason why in a room of over forty people not one of them was making a sound was the unexpected soap-opera level drama taking place in the middle of the amphitheatre like bunker.

An unknown bearded man, dressed like a tramp, was lying in the middle of a rapidly expanding puddle of blood while the mouthy blond guard who had escorted Lady Riesen to the safety of the command room was venting her annoyance at the dying man’s sudden reappearance after all these years only to for him to get killed in a spectacularly messy way that she was almost certainly going to have to clear up later. The rather inappropriately timed rant came to an abrupt end when the bearded man (whose name was, apparently, Jeep) grabbed the AAC guard’s arm wheezing desperately “Alex, so…much like your mother…you must listen…you’re ready…you’re ready…you are…the chosen one” before dramatically collapsing back on the floor to the obvious confusion of both daughter and onlookers.

What happened next would be the subject of several mental breakdowns, more cases of existential flu than had been seen since the existence of angels and a (albeit missing) God had been proved to be a categorical reality several decades before, and six months of controversial and complicated cover-ups.

 “Huh” came a slightly bewildered voice “I’d wondered where those had got to” as brown-black ink swirled from the dead body and up her arms. 

 

Alex had spent the first eleven years of her life hiding skin that looked like it had been doodled on by an artistically inclined toddler. They had formed an essential part of her childhood along with cathartic eight-ball hunting with her father and teddy bear picnics with her winged stalker. It hadn’t really occurred to Alex while she was growing up in the suburban house with her alternatively hyper-protective and manically depressed father, that the reason she had to wear long sleeves and jeans the whole year round; the reason why she wasn’t allowed to attend sleepovers or encouraged to have actual human friends was because Jeep and Michael were terrified of someone seeing the semi-sentient tattoos she had so much fun playing with.

Those tattoos had driven her father and his Archangel friend round the bend and up the wall. How on earth do you explain to a small child that they must not EVER reveal that patterns swirling over her body to anyone? Add to this the irresistible, almost magnetic, attraction the colour changing ink seemed to pose for all celestial beings and it was running Jeep ragged trying to keep his daughter safe and alive.

In the end, driven by desperation, Michael finally located a half forgotten incantation that could theoretically move those tattoos from little Alex onto a willing body who would then carry the secret until Alex was old enough to understand what they were and what they meant (i.e. now).

As with so many things concerning Alex, however, the plan had not worked as anticipated.  Instead of easily transferring from the chosen one onto the temporary host, the tattoos were resistant to move, and reluctant to stay where they were put.

If Michael was inclined towards anthropomorphising he would have said that the ink was reacting rather petulantly to its change in location and was scheming how to get back to its original body. The first time the Archangel used the incantation the tattoos flowed slowly but steadily onto Jeep and everything seemed settled for the next three weeks. Instead of flocking to Alex, any angel who was close enough to pick up on the beacon-like aura the tattoos emitted followed Jeep and was swiftly (and permanently) dealt with.

This temporary anonymity meant that Alex was finally allowed to try swimming and had even attended her first sleepover – although this had not been a resounding success. Perhaps an omen of the woman she would become, Alex and her host had had a disagreement over the respective roles of heroes and heroines in who does the saving. This difference of opinion resulted in a bedroom brawl (in which Alex emerged the undisputed victor) and an escort back to her father’s house with a polite ‘I don’t think they suit’. Seeing his daughter upset Jeep had naturally hugged her. The moment his hand touched the bare skin of Alex’s arm, however, the tattoos carefully hidden under his bulky clothes had virtually jumped from him in their eagerness to return to the little girl.

The second time they used the incantation Michael acted as the host.

Needless to say, it was not a success. This time they made it six weeks before the currently verdant script saw its opportunity and pounced. It was during one of Alex’s frequent tea parties that it happened.

After the disastrous sleepover at Mikaela Asquith’s house, Alex seemed to have given up on the idea of making friends with her peers, and instead seemed quite content to just play with her father, Michael and her imaginary friends. After a rousing game (for Alex at least), where the young Sir Alex had to rescue a distressed Michael from his prison in the upper branches of the oak tree where he was being kept by the evil wizard Jeep, they had all settled down in the messy kitchen with Alex’s collection of toys for a tea party. All it took was the Archangel passing the chosen one a cup for the tattoos to reappear up the girl’s arms.

They hadn’t even touched that time.

The writing had flowed from him, round the floral sides of the cup, and onto Alex. Once started there was no stopping it until the tattoos were firmly back where they belonged; swirling and shifting in what could only be described as rapture as little fingers stroked over the text.

The next two years were spent in a ferocious game of hide and seek as Gabriel sent the lower level angels to try and capture the chosen one. Regrettably late to the party, it had only belatedly dawned on Michael that the eight-balls were locating the tattoos rather than Alex herself after a successive seven failed attempts to transfer the marks revealed a pattern; whoever bore the marks inevitably ended up being found and attacked by the Gabriel’s search party. All the time Alex was free of the divine script the angels showed no interest in her.

The urgent question had then become – how could they keep the script from transferring itself back onto the girl they had to protect.

The Archangel, as usual, had a theory; which in hindsight he rather wished he hadn’t discussed with Jeep; particularly given the less than tolerant attitude towards Saviourism, gender politics and the upper classes that Alex developed as a result.   

 

As news spread that Michael had saved a special baby who was destined to save them all a cult had grown in Vega worshiping this mysterious infant. Saviourism, as it was imaginatively named, became the defacto religious opiate for what remained of the masses. Alex had always made a point of keeping away from the religious nut jobs who, in the absence of an actual god, seemed to have settled on venerating some unknown baby. The whole premise seemed distinctly creepy to the young woman; not to mention impractical. Unless this baby came loaded with inbuilt automatic angel killing technology, a hotline to their absent maker or a magic pebble that could control their serial killing celestial visitors Alex very much doubted that this ‘saviour’ would be doing much in the way of saving what was left of the human race for quite a long time – if ever.

That was of course assuming that their chosen one didn’t take one look at the despotically unfair strata system in Vega and give up on the human race as a lost cause before leaving them to their fate. After all, it wasn’t like this hypothetical chosen one was contractually obliged to save humanity. They might have been raised by one of those doomsday cults you occasionally heard about from the Deep South who thought that the only way to avoid the end of the world was to set yourself on fire before the angels did it for you or they might have decided to join the Black Acolytes – a shadowy and very much illegal group who worshiped their celestial pests as gods.

It also wasn’t like the saviour would get paid for their efforts and, if the history Michael had shoved down her throat had taught Alex anything, it was that saviours and chosen ones tended to a) die young, b) die in horribly painful ways, and c) be killed by the very people they were either trying to or had actually saved. Given the above, why would anyone bother trying to save humanity? Alex certainly wouldn’t be inclined to bother if it was left up to her.

This cynical world view was only further compounded by the ruthless pragmatism that had been beaten into her during those four horrible months between her father doing a moonlight flit and Michael finally located his missing ward and whisking her off to safety. Jeep’s unexpected disappearance during one October night had sent the young Alex’s already unconventional world into chaos.

Abruptly abandoned and with no close family to take her in Alex had been reclassified from a respectable V3 living in a nice suburban area of Vega to a V1; the lowest strata in their society, reserved for the dregs. V1 might as well have been named V-no-one-gives-a-fuck for all the care and attention the ruling families devoted to trying to keep the unlucky members of this tier actually alive, let alone healthy. V1s lived in hovels made of whatever building material they could scavenge (if they were lucky) or in the back streets and storm tunnels if they weren’t. Alex had not been one of the lucky ones. She had had to learn fast and toughen up faster; vulnerability was a weakness you couldn’t afford to have living on the streets and there had been more than one occasion where Alex had only survived to see the next day because of her stubborn refusal to curl up and die. Those months had hammered into the impressionable eleven year old the essential lesson that ‘life helps those who help themselves’ and that gender apparently mattered quite a lot. 

For Michael those for four months had provided an equally hard lesson to learn. The prince of heaven had finally learnt what it meant to love something so finite, so preciously fragile that the prospect of harm coming to her was more than his newly awoken heart could stand. It is easy to love something that is infinite, to know that you will never have to be apart from it or that it will be taken away and lost to you forever. This is the sort of love that exists between angels – the comforting and comfortable knowledge that these are your companions and they will always be so. But this emotion that he felt for his beloved chosen one was so much more than that; it was like a raging torrent compared to a placid pond – and it hurt.

Whatever decisions the Archangel might have made had Alex been born a boy, one chromosome apparently made all the difference. Had Alex been the boy Michael had been expecting, he would undoubtedly have had to remain at a distance, only watching over the chosen one from afar, lest anyone start to get suspicious of his attachment and interest in the child. Jeep’s disappearance and Alex’s subsequent life on the streets would probably have been used as a vital life lesson for toughening up the chosen one in preparation for his eventual destiny.

Overcoming pain, desperation and poverty to become compassionate, self-sacrificing ambassadors for the cause was essential in these sorts of destinies; and something Michael had seen (and helped ensure) many times over the last 80,000 years. As it was, Alex was a girl, and Michael found to his great surprise that his conscience balked at doing to the little girl he had helped raise what he had planned to do to her male counterpart. By allowing the humans to make of his deliberately genderless story what they wanted, Michael had provided Alex with the greatest protection it was within his power to give – and it had changed everything.

The initial assumption that the saviour must be a boy because it had always been a boy in the past had quickly become a living fact as it became the corner stone of the new religion. Everyone, including his fellow angels, were looking for a boy not a girl and this meant that Michael could be a regular visitor in little Alex’s life. The Archangel had devoted hour upon hour to playing with the child, teaching her about the classics, about history, tactics and politics, helping her with her homework and showing her how to shoot and wield a sword. It had formed an unbreakable bond between them which almost certainly would not have been present had the young saviour been male.

When Michael had first suggested to his friend his theory that perhaps the only way of successfully keeping the tattoos from returning to Alex would be to leave, and have no contact with the girl, until such a time as she was ready to accept the responsibility they heralded he had been thinking of himself. Of the two of them he was the less essential to Alex’s continued welfare and wellbeing and with the council demanding more and more of his time it seemed like the best solution to their problems.  What he had not counted on was Jeep’s increasingly unbalanced mental state which led the man to deciding that not only did he have to leave to protect his daughter but that he wouldn’t tell the Archangel he had done it.

It was an unfortunate coincidence that the week he put this plan into action happened to coincide with a renewed offensive by Gabriel which kept Michael fully occupied. By the time the attack had been repelled and Michael had managed to escape from the demands of the council nearly three weeks had passed and it was far too late; Jeep was long gone and little Alex had been sucked into the black hole that was V1 social welfare. It took the furious Archangel three months and thirteen days to find the missing child and when he did it was to find her malnourished, hypothermic and dangerously ill. Alex nearly died that winter and, standing guard over her bed in the infirmary, Michael made a promise that it would not happen again – he would not allow it!

Another month saw the establishment of the Archangel Cadets; a military corps consisting of promising teenagers too young for the regular military who would be trained by him to eventually become an elite regiment under his direct control. Alex was one of the first to be signed up along with her new friend Ethan who had taken her under his wing and almost certainly saved her life during those months living in the storm tunnels. Michael was not one who usually felt gratitude towards anyone, least of all humans, but it seemed like such a small matter to give this Ethan a chance for a better life and if it ensured that Alex would have a stalwart protector in the group? Well, so much the better.

And so the secret had been kept. Jeep’s abandonment had achieved the desired objectives. Alex had learnt in the protection of anonymity to be tough, resourceful and a fierce warrior able to hold her own against anyone.  At no point during the last twenty-five years, however, had Alex ever considered the possibility that her tattoos were the source of all her problems. Or that the reason she might have them was because she was the chosen one; which, perhaps, explains why the tattoos reappearance on her skin fazed her less than the shock of seeing her almost/certainly/probably dead father, for the first time in over a decade, in Michael’s bedroom. It would probably have made everyone’s life a bit easier, however, if the Archangel had broached the subject of her tattoos with the chosen one before she was publically out-ed.

 

Determinedly ignoring the incredulous stares from Vega’s ruling elite, Alex continued her slightly dazed perusal of her funky (and much missed) scribbles. She had missed them over the years. Missed the way they swirled over her skin whenever they felt like it. Missed the way they coiled and burned in the Archangel’s presence as if they were a dog furiously wagging its tail in greeting towards a beloved friend. Most of all, however, she had missed the way they made her feel like she was wrapped up in duvet; warm and whole and wonderfully relaxed.

Abruptly yanked out of her comforting denial Alex suddenly found herself face to face with senator Whele, his hands gripped her elbows with bruising strength as he forcibly inspected the brown ink spiralling up her forearms. 

“What is this?” the senator demanded as his son knelt before the sergeant. “What do these mean?!? What did he mean, you’re the chosen one? Answer me!”

It was only a fortunate combination of deeply ingrained military training and the beginnings of shock which stopped Alex from reflexively breaking the nose of the bozo who was manhandling her as she instead settled on an aggressive -

“Oi, hand’s off bucko”

“Excuse me?!?” Whele roared as he locked eyes with the soldier in a furious stare-down.

The standoff was broken by the unexpected whoosh of the bunker door opening.

All eyes turned towards the upper level as the Archangel made a timely reappearance. Brushing past his off-and-on lover with an absentminded “I’m fine”, Michael strode down the steps towards the body of his friend, pausing briefly at his side, before sweeping into a graceful genuflection in front of the distracted chosen one as he announced calmly:

“Alex is the baby I saved all those years ago. She is the chosen one and _she_ is under _my_ protection.”

The commotion started almost immediately as Senator Thorn tried to push her way past her fellow senators in a vain attempt to reach the Archangel. Voices, each clamouring to be heard over the others, shouted for Michael to explain what he meant. How could this be the chosen one? Wasn’t the chosen one a boy? What did this mean? How was this mere V2 girl going to save them?

Michael, however, opted to ignore these questions in favour of gliding over to Alex, pulling her away from the grasping hands of senator Whele as his fingers smoothed over the intricate patterns on her arms, his eyes scanning her for any injuries. “You are not hurt?” he enquired quietly as the precious, impossible woman before him jerked out of whatever thoughts had kept her distracted.

“What? Oh no, Angel. No, I’m fine. Well fine-ish…as in, you know, not actually bleeding. Could probably have done with today not happening at all but unless you’ve got a time machine hidden in your pocket I doubt there’s much that can be done about that. Dad’s dead. Some midget stabbed him with a cheese knife. It’s odd really…I’ve spent the last decade thinking he was dead and then he turns up, totally out of the blue, alive and kicking and now he’s dead again. At least he’s given these back though…I’d wondered where my doodles had got to. I don’t understand why all these people are staring at me though. Dad said something about the ‘chosen one’ and now I think they think I’m it - mental right? Hahahahaha. Maybe they’re just jealous of my awesome doodles as well?... They really need to get an interior decorator to come in and look at this room – it’s dead depressing. Do you get it? Dead depressing? (giggle) I think I feel a bit sick…those lights look awesome…I wonder what would happen if I pressed all the red buttons… ” 

The sharp intake of breath from behind his left shoulder alerted Michael to the fact that Becca Thorn had heard the murmured endearment mixed into Alex’s babbling speech; but a jealous senator was the least of his concerns at that moment. Alex was rapidly going into shock and (as he knew from prior experience) an Alex who was not in full control of her mental faculties was a social liability waiting to happen. Given their exulted company this was not the time or the place for some foolish senator to hit on one of the young woman’s many peeves. He doubted that anyone in the room was in the right state of mind to listen to Alex’s thoughts on how the V system could be dramatically improved (by scrapping it entirely), feminism and the glass ceiling confronting women in the armed services, the sewer system or the ridiculousness of Saviourism.

The last one had posed a particular, and increasing, problem, for the angel over the last couple of years as Alex had come into more and more contact with the rapidly expanding religious group. Michael, partly because he was instrumental in the story, and partly because he believed that it was important to foster hope in this woebegone species had maintained a fairly active role in this religion. He turned up at their festivals, had posed for a few statues and paintings and had gently encouraged the growth of what he had intended to be Alex’s support network and followers once she had been revealed as this mythical chosen one. To further protect the secret of the chosen one’s identity he had been deliberately vague as to the age and sex of the baby in question. Left to their own devices on this humanity had naturally assumed that the chosen one was boy; and, in fairness to them, historical precedent had certainly prepared him for a boy to once again be the saviour. Discovering that the chosen one was actually a girl had certainly given him pause for thought when he’d finally met the child and it was only the immediate, undeniable sense of kinship that could only come from his father’s touch that convinced him that yes, he had found the right baby.

What he had not counted on with his gentle manipulations was Alex’s fierce resentment at what she argued was yet another example of the inherent patriarchal misogyny within Vega society which meant that humanity could only be saved by a man. This anger when mixed with her outrage that a collective body of well over 500,000 people thought it was not only okay, but perfectly reasonable, to dump the responsibility of saving everyone (themselves included) on a poor little baby who had no idea what he was in for and no ability to opt out had led to a violent and highly combustible automatic reaction to the cult Alex perceived as responsible for propagating such ridiculous thinking. The irony that the saviour loathed Saviourism with a fervour she usually reserved for eight-balls, paedophiles and people who wasted food was not lost on the angel; although he doubted that Alex was of a mind, at present, to appreciate the humour. 

Such explosive sentiments had resulted in more than a few ceiling raising arguments between him and his as yet unaware chosen one. It was a good thing, he had thought on more than one occasion, that he lived alone at the top of the tallest tower in Vega as it had greatly reduced the likelihood of anyone overhearing their furious discussions or Alex ‘s true status might have been revealed long before either of them were remotely ready.

 

Propelling his chosen one towards the exit with as much haste as possible, Michael’s mind wandered to thoughts of plans for what came next. So much was uncertain at this point; so many paths the future might take. So many possibilities and potential pit falls that it was maddening even for an angel to think about for too long.

The only thing that Michael was certain about was the Alex would certainly not be your average hero.

And, perhaps, given what would be required to bring both their species back from the point of extinction an unconventional hero was just what they needed.

Even if it did break 80,000 years of tradition. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Christmas my lovelies. Hope you enjoyed the latest instalment.


	3. An Etiquette Lesson for making threats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which threats are made, lessons are learnt and David Whele realises that whiskey might just be the only answer

In hindsight, Alex probably should have anticipated that the first thing a control freak like David Whele would do after the big reveal would be to try and exert whatever control he could over the situation. Unfortunately she hadn’t; and so it had come as quite a rude shock in a week of unwelcome surprises when she turned up at the Riesen residence fully expecting a soothing day of bumming about Vega with Claire and Bixby and was informed that her job had been moved to House Whele.

Alex’s day had gone from bad to much worse in the space of time it took her to walk to her new post. There, lying in wait for her, was the sour faced senator himself. The next half an hour would go down in Alex’s eventual memoires as yet another reminder of the inverse relationship between power and intelligence and a prime example of the old saying, ‘if you want to know what God thought of money, just look at who he gave it to’. Based on her (admittedly limited) interactions with the senator and the vast wealth he was rumoured to possess it looked to the chosen one like the senator required an enormous amount of cosmic compensation for being born such a miserable, unlikable git.  

Alex had to give it to the old sourpuss, however. He really was pulling out all the stops when it came to building an ambience of inchoate dread and amorphous threat; she was almost shaking in her regulation boots as she tuned back into his monologue for the finale.

“What I do know is the psychology of faith. I have seen first-hand what true believers are capable of; either they’ll tear themselves apart trying to touch you or they’ll nail you to a cross. Either way, _you are_ a danger to our city – one I would have no trouble disposing of” Whele exclaimed in what he evidently thought was a sinister and lordly manner designed to intimidate the so called chosen one into dancing to his tune.

In the deafening silence that followed the senator’s speech time seemed to slow down as the chosen one digested this latest development. It was to be the calm before the storm.

Irritation swept through Alex like a tidal wave at the foolhardy threat against those she loved. Hierarchies were important in Vega. In fact it would be fair to say that one could not live in Vega without appreciating them to some extent. Even the lowly, downtrodden V1s and V2s understood the importance of understanding hierarchies; although in their case these social structures were more often than not were used as an unofficial watch list of who you should avoid at all costs and people who were going to screw you over rather than a system of deference and respect.  David Whele’s actions were driven by fear that the protective, insulating hierarchy in which he was indisputably at the top was about to implode with the appearance of the long hoped for saviour. This morning had been set up to remind Alex of her place in the grand scheme of Vega’s ruling elite. It was a puerile power play and one that had been grossly misjudged – no one threatened Alex’s family!

A slight narrowing of her eyes was all the forewarning her opponent had as Alex forced her attention back to the slimy senator; her body shifting out of the text book parade rest she had been holding in favour of slouching back against the over polished table behind her, ankles crossed in front of her – body language screaming nonchalant disrespect in her relaxed pose.   

A tick started at the corner of the senator’s eye as the chosen one spat the gum that had been in mouth into her hand before depositing it in his priceless antique cigarette tray.

Regrettably for the grumpy senator, Alex was not a woman easily scared or prone to doing as she was told, threatened or instructed – as the Archangel Michael knew only too well. Perhaps if she had been born a boy - or if she hadn’t spent most of her formative years with a borderline psychotic father and an emotionally constipated angel - it might have had more of an impact of her than it actually did.  As it was, the saviour was inclined to award Whele an A for effort, but probably only a C- for actual achievement.

Which is exactly what she told him after he had finished his little speech about the dangers of faith and the future she could look forward to if her secret identity were to become known.

The following explosion would have been highly entertaining for the young woman if she hadn’t been so concerned that Senator-grumpy-pants was about to keel over from his apoplectic fit. Such an event, while initially tempting, would inevitably lead to akward questions and more form filling than Alex’s hand could bare. It said something about society when death was more inconvenient for the person left to deal with the resulting bureaucratic shenanigans (all forms in quadruplicate if you please) than for the person who had actually died. 

“Do you know who I am, Sargent? I am not accustomed to being talked to in such a manner and I can assure you that I am not an enemy you want to make; you and your little angel fuck-buddy have no idea who you are up against! I could make you disappear with a snap of my fingers and there wouldn’t be a single thing your pet angel could do to stop me” Whele drawled with his usual arrogance.

Electing to ignore the standard (if rather stalkery) assumption that she must _of course_ be sleeping with Michael in favour of forcibly restraining her desire to reply to this Lady Catherine-esq comment with - ‘that would make your ladyship’s position more pitiable, but it will have no effect on me’, Alex instead opted for a response the apoplectic senator was more likely to understand. Lips twitching at the mental image of David Whele starring in Pride and Prejudice, in one of those Victorian type dresses with a corset and hooped skirt, Alex steeled herself for imparting a few choice truths about the situation they now found themselves in. It was time for Senator Whele to understand exactly who he was trying to mess with.

“Of course I know who you are, sir” the blond replied with a look at the senator suggesting that he had dribbled something embarrassing down his shirt. “But that’s not really the pertinent question now, is it. I’d have thought a much more important question would be do _you_ know who _I_ am?”

Confusion was evidently highly contagious around the chosen one as David Whele stared, gobsmacked, at being talked back to, and contradicted, for the second time in the space of ten minutes. Considerably annoyed by this point at the utter stupidity she was having to put up with on a regular basis Alex decided it time for a few home truths before this uppity V6 got any more bright “ideas” about the current situation.

“Suddenly, with the apocalypse looming, the chosen child is expendable?  I admit I’m new to the ins and outs of this realpolitik threatening game, but how, exactly, do you escalate from here?  If you talk, we make your life hell.  If anyone finds out that you’ve let a cosmic toddler loose on your skin, we’ll make you disappear. If you don’t do as you’re told, we shoot your friends.  If you don’t save humanity you’ll, what, smack me on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and revoke my TV privileges?” Alex asked witheringly.

The senator spluttered, words continuing to fail him, as he stared in mute befuddlement at the woman who seemed set on disrupting every plan and turning the world upside down just by breathing.

“Look, I get it. You’re worried what this sort of knowledge will do to the sheeples bumbling about in Vega. I have no intention of taking the limelight away from you by starring on the world stage as humanity’s saviour, martyr or scape goat; so I am in complete and utter agreement with you about the whole secrecy thing. I’ll keep schtum and you’ll keep schtum and we can go back to ignoring each other’s continued existence, capiche?”

David nodded feebly as he felt the beginnings of an almighty migraine gathering in his temples.

“Oh, and before I forget. A little piece of advice, senator, for the next time we have one of these little chats; if the party in question feels they have something to add after being threatened you've not done it right! If Michael was here, he would have had you on your knees confessing to every even vaguely naughty thought you’ve ever had in less than two minutes; and he wouldn’t even have needed to speak to do it. All he’d need to do is raise an eyebrow in your direction and you’d be needing a clean pair of trousers. This?” Alex exclaimed with a grand hand sweep around the room “well, it’s just embarrassing really. This morning, wouldn’t have intimidated a bumblebee let alone me. I was expecting a lot more from you…oh well,” the chosen one sighed somewhat despondently before adding in a doubtful voice, “there’s always next time I suppose or failing that Gabriel” before she straightened her regulation jacket and turned towards to exit.

“Now, if that’s all, senator, I think I’d best be getting back to my job. There’s a suspicious looking fruit bowl in the foyer that needs guarding.”

And with a jaunty salute, Alex left the senator wondering in total confusion when and how the hell he had lost control of that conversation and what this encounter portended for the future.  His demonstration this morning was meant to have cowed the chosen one into towing the line – his line. Instead, David Whele had the uncomfortable suspicion that the tables had been completely turned on him and, rather than this Alex Lannon understanding _her_ position in _his_ government, that he had been weighed, measured and found severely wanting. Whoever this woman was she was not just refusing to play by the same rule book, she was rewriting the rules as she pleased – and that? Well that was a considerably bigger problem than having a previously mythical (read imaginary) saviour magically appear in front of Vega’s ruling elite with plans to revolutionise the strata system.

And that was before you added Gabriel into the mix.    

Shuddering at the mental image that thought conjured David Whele chose the only sensible, rational and adult option left to him and reached for the nearly full whisky decanter, bypassing the expensive  glasses in favour of going straight to the source. Thank heavens he had another thirteen bottles of this rather good (and now rare) Glenmorangy stashed in his office - it looked like he would be making use of them all if not today than in the very near future.

Staring absentmindedly out of the window the senator started praying to the no longer resident god in forlorn hope that he was several hundred miles away (and in a secure bunker) when the obviously psychotic Gabriel finally met his match in the equally deranged chosen one. Maybe that old saying his grandfather was so fond of had some truth to it after-all that like its teenagers and politicians humanity has the heroes it deserves. But if that was the case…what on earth did it say about Vega that they had been lumbered with Alex Landon.   

Tipping the decanter back and taking a long pull the senator was left with only one thought in his increasingly fuzzy mind.

Lord save them all.


	4. Of Dimensional Chess and Personal Ephiphanies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Michael tries to escape reality only to end up where he started, has an epiphany and meets god - although he doesn't realise it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya, 
> 
> *waves in embarrassment*. I haven't forgotten this story, honest! I'm in my final year of a PhD so everything has gone a little mental. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has left comments or kudos - I was really surprised, and rather touched, that people seem to be liking this story so much. 
> 
> This chapter is a little shorter than the other ones, it's set after the end of the first series just after Michael has his little temper tantrum. Just to warn you, it's a little disjointed as Michael is meant to be off his head and I've kept Becca alive in this 'verse (mostly so I can torture her in some of the later chapters I've got planned out).

One of the little known laws of the universe is that bad things always come in threes. So, Michael considered as he stared around the cavernous room he was stuck in, he really should have expected this latest development. The whole situation with first Gabriel attempting to drip his usual poison into his wife’s ear and then the discovery, just days later, that his former lover, Becca Thorn, had been cheerfully butchering the neutral angels hidden in his city for ‘scientific purposes’ was merely the tipping point in an already shit week.

Alex wasn’t speaking to him. Or rather, the Archangel assumed that his little mass-murdering, but oh so very therapeutic, killing spree a few hours ago was not likely to have softened the love of his multi-millenia life attitude towards him; especially considering that the reason she was currently camping out on Claire Reissen’s sofa and doing her level best to ignore her six foot, be-winged stalker was because Gabriel had seen fit to tell her some of his more… colourful Old Testament exploits.  

So he had escaped. Leaving the mutilated bodies of Consul Thorn’s guard exsanguinating on the previously pristine white floor of the laboratory for whoever was unfortunate enough to come across them next. Angry and betrayed Michael had flown as if the hounds of Lucifer himself were chasing him – away from Vega, away from Alex and away from the fight he had dedicated the last three decades of his life to. He was done with the lot of them – including the saviour he had helped raise.  

Only he hadn’t escaped. Because here he was, standing on an oversized chess board, in cavernous room with more shadows than light staring in what he had the horrible suspicion might have been shock facing bad thing no. 3.; which had, apparently, decided to take the form of a giant chess board and a disembodied voice telling him to choose a path.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

I could save the world but lose you. Michael stared at the two possible futures placed before him; Alex or the world, humanity or one woman, his father or the martyr. It should have been an easy choice, an obvious one; no question of hesitation or uncertainty – it was utilitarianism at its finest, all he had to do was stand back and let the future take its course and all would be as it once was.

But it wasn’t.

To his left his siblings smiled and waved at him from the unbarred gates of Heaven, Gabriel beckoning him to join them as they awaited his return before re-entering those hallowed halls.

To his right stood Alex alone in a grave yard of the dead, arms crossed in all her surly glory, face turned away from him in weary resignation.

‘Choose!’ repeated the disembodied voice, the solitary word sweeping across the dreamscape, bringing with it a heavy, almost crushing, sense of foreboding.

The choice should have been a simple matter for the Archangel, so simple it should never have been a choice at all. The temptation was almost too great to resist. Humanity had betrayed him, murdered his innocent brethren in order to find out how to control him, the Archangel, to whom they owed their very existence and he longed to feel balm of comfort only his fellow angels could provide. The answer was obvious and with a sudden rush of painful clarity Michael knew exactly what he had to choose.

With one last look at his sacrifice, at what he would never now have, he moved onto the chess board and made his choice. 

The moment his arms and wings wrapped around the girl he knew he had made the right decision even as the room swirled and started dissolving around them. This is where he belonged now, forever standing between his brethren and his mate; though it cost him heaven, he would not waver again. Alex was everything.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

The burning bright sunlight shocked the Archangel back into reality as the last lingering traces of his meditative trance dissipated. Blinking slowly, Michael took in his surroundings, in his distress he had flown heedlessly until exhaustion had finally forced him from the sky. By luck or providence his landing place was secluded and he had not been attacked while unconscious. Given the tropical blue sky stretched over head, the blisteringly hot sun, the climate and the flora  surrounding him it appeared he had landed somewhere in the Antipodes. 

When Michael had first met the squawling infant known as Alex, it was after a frankly irritating and badly timed eight ball attack, and a case of mistaken identity where the new saviour’s parents thought he was the midwife and he had mistakenly assumed the baby was a boy and had been calling him ‘he’ for twenty minutes. Looking back on that time, the fracas around Alex’s birth really set the tone for the next twenty-six years – which is why two and half decades on from that day he found himself married to Alex (for the fourth, but only official, time), used as a frequent pin cushion or dress makers dummy for whatever sartorial project his wife was keen on at that moment (her current obsession was pattern knitting; as the Archangel’s previously black wardrobe could now attest) and often bewildered as to how the tried and true method of raising sacrificial saviour’s appeared to have gone so wrong when confronted with Alex.

Alex - snipey, sarcastic, belligerent, brilliant, wonderful, Alex – was the love of his incredibly long life. She was the only thing that made the absence of his father, and constant presence of humanity, bearable. He had come to believe, to hope, that Alex could bring back the father; saving humanity and the angels at the same time and still have Alex alive and turning everything he knew upside down. That he, the Archangel, would be allowed to have his cake and eat it.

But it wasn’t to be. In the strange arena he found himself in he could see the future all too clearly. It was not a case of ‘and’ but or ‘either/or’. He could have one but not both.

Clarity had returned and with it his purpose and confidence. His actions in Vega were…regrettable in a number of ways. He would have to apologise to Becca at some point in the future and explain his conduct to the Senate but for now that would have to wait. Alex was in danger and as long as he drew breath he would not allow Alex to be the next martyr – they would find another way. 

It was time to fight for what was his. 

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Hidden in the shadows at the edge of board, the mysterious voice smiled as the images faded from sight to be replaced once more by the life sized chess pieces. For better or worse the game was set and the battle-lines drawn. The players were all in position and already committed to a complicated dance of move and counter move. Alliances were shifting and would continue to change as events unfolded.

The white king was no longer alone surrounded by the debris of the fallen army. Standing proudly in front of her king, the newly awoken queen faced the encroaching black pieces, white wings shielding the king from harm.

Lady Reissen was positioned at the end of the board. The pawn about to become a queen in her own right. Overlooked and manipulated for so long soon she would be a formidable ally, one fiercely committed to protecting her king, once she revealed her new position and power.

Gabriel sat opposite, a shadowed rook perched high in his castle as he waited and plotted and schemed for a future he was unwittingly undermining. He moved in straight, predictable lines as he let his anger fester and rule him. He would be the easiest for the new King and Queen to counter.

Raphael, the white queen’s bishop, was poised off to one side, only awaiting the summons to join the fray, and take the black pawn that was William Whele.

The black bishop with Furiad’s face stood tall, guarding Gabriel’s rook. White streaks were starting to crack the black marble of his piece as the white king continued her campaign.

And there, at the farthest end, almost completely hidden in the shadows was aloof and untouchable Uriel; the black king marshalling her troops and pulling the strings from the shadows behind Gabriel’s hollow throne. She was the real danger, and the greatest threat, but the board was now set and the players were moving.

 

The being ran an affectionate hand over the white king and smiled again; one Archangel down, only another six to go. Michael had finally understood and now? Well now humanity really had hope.

Because what is the point of saving the world if it costs you your soul.  

Life can make monsters of us all but love is the antidote.

And by hook, or by crook, would all of god’s children learn to love each other.


	5. Not your Average Hero: Introducing Alex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Michael suffers from a case of mistaken identity, hits his head on a door, shows off his battle prowess, has a shock and realises he might be a closet misogynist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING! This chapter completely ignores Legion (mostly because that film made even less sense than Dominion... which is saying something).

If angels could suffer from headaches, Michael believed he would be enjoying a grand one right about now.

When the bedraggled man had opened the door to him Michael had been fully prepared to start on his well-rehearsed ‘hail stranger well met, I bring tidings of great joy’ speech. What he had not been expecting was for the scruffy bearded man to grab him by the lapels of his coat, wrench him into the house with surprising force, while shouting about how it was about bloody time the midwife turned up.

The Archangel had been mistaken for many things over his incredibly long life (ranging from an extra from Jesus Christ Super Star, a drag queen and on one occasion a UFO when he had been on business near Roswell) but a midwife? Well that was certainly new. 

In surprisingly short order Michael found himself loitering in the doorway of what was obviously the master bedroom where an incredibly pregnant looking female was waddling, hands on belly. Given the nature of the mutterings coming from the human female, the Archangel surmised that he had arrived slightly too early and that the chosen one had yet to actually be born.

The midwife comment was making more sense now.

As were the dire threats being directed at the bearded man – who was apparently her husband and, one would assume, the father of the next chosen one.

 

“Charlie’s not normally like this-“ the tramp like man started, smiling apologetically, in a break between the impressively creative threats the now named pregnant woman had been hissing.

“You try bein’ up half the night, feelin’ like your stomach’s trying ta explode, all while you’re trying ta push out a nine pound melon out of a hole that’s usually only about the size of a dime and see how cheery you feel after” his wife interrupted.

It was while Michael was attempting to work out the best way to extricate himself from this confusion without unnecessarily alarming the distracted couple that the mother-to-be finally noticed the strangely dressed man hovering awkwardly in her doorway.

Eyeing the black clad stranger with overt hostility, Charlie stopped her waddling in favour of staring at the man with a displeased eyebrow raised. “Who’s this then?” She demanded of Jeep, her attention never wavering from the awkward figure still hovering in her bedroom door.

“Erm…” Jeep began slowly as he scratched his beard “The midwife? Didn’t get his name, though, through all your caterwauling”.  

His wife harrumphed at this less than flattering description of what she thought were perfectly valid complaints delivered in a perfectly acceptable manner considering the circumstances. Jeep, wise to the ways of the love of his life, quickly comprehended his mistake and backtracked accordingly – “Not that what you were saying wasn’t true, love, and really, ya know, there’s nothing I like more than hearing your plans for my John Thomas- .”

It was at this point that Jeep spotted the second eyebrow rising to join the first - the flow of pacifying word vomit issuing from his mouth abruptly trailing off as Jeep cowered away from his wife and raised his hands in the universal gesture of surrender.

Silence reigned supreme. Into this valley of almost certain death, the Archangel squared his shoulders and finally left the relative safety of the doorway. Voice calm, compelling and as smooth as molten chocolate, the angel said: “I am Michael”.

If Michael had been expecting some sort of reaction to his regal proclamation he was to be disappointed. Where once there would have been respectful genuflection, thankful praise offered up to the heavens, or even – in the really bad cases –  a ‘well, that’s nice, pleased to meet you, Michael’. What he got instead was Charlie seating herself on the edge of the bed, legs akimbo, after hiking her maternity shift up over the large bump of her belly with a “Great. Now that we’re all introduced an’ all, let’s get down ta business”.

Michael stared, as silent and immovable as a statue, before his eyes rolled back into his head and he crumpled dramatically to the floor; his head hitting the still open door with a solid _THWAK_ on his way down. Over two hundred thousand years of existence, countless battles waged, an innumerable number of people dead at his hands, and this was the first time in his entire incredibly colourful and adventurous life that he had fainted.  

Charlie regarded the prone figure now cluttering up her bedroom with a considering expression. “Ya sure he’s a midwife?” she asked her husband as Jeep crouched down next to the black clad stranger to check on the now bleeding head wound.

“What else would he be?” Jeep asked absentmindedly, mind occupied with clearing up the blood and fixing a Disney princess plaster over the cut.    

“Dunno” his wife agreed after a thoughtful moment. “Bit of a strange choice of career though, midwifery, for a bloke whose faints at the sight of a pregnant woman.”

Jeep looked down at the still unconscious man lying innocently on their floor with Olaf from Frozen plastered on his head.

“I’ll just get the shotgun”.  

 

* * *

 

 

Coming to after hitting your head is never a very pleasant experience. There is this moment where consciousness finally greets you with a crow bar and an ugly expression before all systems finally get back online and consciousness takes a back seat to nausea and its good friends throbbing and disorientation. It is no different for angels. When Michael finally awoke from his unexpected adventure into unconsciousness he was greeted with a thrumming sound in his head, a roiling stomach and the business end of a shotgun lazily held in his vague direction.

Dazed, somewhat confused and feeling like he had missed a rather important plot development, Michael concentrated on the two humans in the room.

Glaring from her nest of pillows, Charlie growled out “you ain’t a midwife”.

“No” the Archangel agreed politely.

The barrel of the shotgun clicked to attention and levelled itself squarely on Michaels face.  

Swearing up an impressive storm, Charlie continued glowering from the bed where she was gripping the sheets between close contractions, alternating between the now conscious stranger and her husband as the lucky recipient of her ire.

It was at this critical moment that a group of eight-balls decided to join the party.

Scarcley even thinking about the consequences of abruptly unveiling large wings to a pair of stressed, nesting and armed humans, Michael barrelled out of the door leading to a veranda in order to meet his hostile brethren and prevent them from harming the as yet to be born chosen one.

 

* * *

 

 

30 minutes later

When the last angel had finally been dealt with, Michael returned inside, eager to meet the new chosen one. The screams from inside the little house had impressively eclipsed the tortured cries of the eightballs as Michael (with Jeep shooting those visible from the bedroom window) tore them limb from limb and then set them on fire. Charlie had fallen silent a few minutes before the final angel had been dispatched, so with a degree of what in a human might be called elated expectation, Michael made his way across the now battle scarred land towards the partially broken front door.  

Walking into the bedroom the Archangel was met with what he imagined most humans would consider to be a heart-warming sight; assuming they were prepared to ignore the acrid smell of blood and the mess that comes with birthing something that weighs nine pounds and is awkwardly shaped, that is. On the bed were mother, father and the screaming bundle of joy destined to save the whole of creation.

Uncharacteristically uncertain as to how to behave in this situation the angel hovered by the door waiting for a divine hint on what to do. It came in the shape of the bearded man waving him through the door with the business end of his gun as he said “so an angel, huh? Why’d you ring the doorbell if you’re here to kill us? Never known an angel be bothered by something as trivial as human manners b’fore”.

“Jeep” the exhausted looking woman on the bed said reproachfully, calm now that the painful part was over with “that’s no way to talk to a guest in this house – and put that gun down. You know the magnum is much more effective in close quarters”.

Astonished, it took Michael several seconds to find his voice to reply “I am the Archangel Michael and I am here to save creation. Your child is the chosen one”.

If Michael had been expecting his proclamation to improve matters he was doomed to disappointment. Instead of appearing awed and humbled that he, the prince of the heavenly host, had decided to wage war on his brethren in order to protect humanity the bearded man threw his head back and laughed “you might want to get a move on then – b’fore what’s left of the human race goes the way of the dodo”.

Nonplussed by this unprecedented series of events Michael stared woodenly as the laughing couple eventually caught their breath and calmed down.

“Suppose I’d best introduce you to ya charge then, hadn’t I? This here is Alex. Alex say hello to the angel who thinks you’re gonna save the world” Jeep said as he passed the angel the baby.

Looking down at the (thankfully) clean baby cradled awkwardly in his arms Michael could only stare in mute astonishment – this was a most unexpected development.

The child was strong for a new-born, with the right number of arms and legs, and wispy blond hair that humans would no doubt find attractive in a leader. Pulling away the blankets the angel was relieved to find inhuman emerald green script wrapped around the tiny mortal confirming that this _was_ indeed the chosen one. The name was almost a providential good fortune as well and could not have been better chosen. Alexander roughly translated meant ‘man’s defender’ which was an apt description of what the boy would become.   

Inordinately pleased that the future saviour had been appropriately named for his destiny, and that he would not be saddled with trying to market and train a ridiculously named saviour (see the catastrophe that was saviour Bob back in the 17th century), Michael was on the point of handing the child back to his increasingly fidgety father when he finally noticed what should have been apparent from the moment he started his examination.    

“he’s a girl”, he said at last, surprise colouring his usual monotone.  The baby gazed back at him, distinctly unimpressed by the angel’s powers of observation, as she determined that she was no longer being held by the milk producing thing.

“Course she’s a girl. What else were you expecting?”

“A boy. I was expecting a boy. Saviours have always been boys in the past. I thought you said his name was Alex”.

“Yeah, Alex, as in short for Alexandra – after Charlie’s ma” Jeep explained as he took the now squawking infant away from the poleaxed angel and deposited her safely back in her mother’s arms.

The angel stood frozen at the foot of the bed. This was most… unexpected! Why a girl? Why now? How in heavens name was he going to guide a female saviour? Boys were easy; you left them alone so that they would grow up angry at the world. When they ready to start training you would then save them, thus earning their trust, before teaching them to fight and guiding them to their destiny. The final stage was the most satisfying; once fully trained you simply pointed the testosterone filled youngster in the direction of the problem, sat back and watched the saviour have at it. The system had worked for eons. But a girl? That complicated matters. Teenage girls were… difficult and unpredictable and prone to worrying about things like clothes and hair and, and, and – oh lord save us – teen romances. One of the distinct benefits of the war so far had been the destruction of Hollywood and with it series like the dreaded Twilight quartet had, Michael hoped, been lost forever. The Archangel had almost been inclined to forgive his brother his genocidal behaviour for that one act of kindness alone.

Charlie glared at the angel, her maternal instincts starting to rage at the slight to her offspring . “Well that’s rather sexist ain’t it? Are ya suggesting that the world can’t be saved by a girl, that a girl won’t save the world or just that you got it wrong? Cause from where I’m sittin’, men ain’t been much use in stoppin’ this war, and folk’s in glass houses really shouldn’t be throwin’ stones around”.

“No, there can be no mistake. This is the chosen one – she bears the divine script of my father”.

“Then maybe instead of worrying about my girl living up to your expectations you need to start thinking about whether you can live up to ours. I ain’t about to hand over my little girl to some be-winged nutcase in a trench coat so that he can fatten her up like a pig t’the slaughter and sacrifice her on the altar of humanity’s incompetence. We have saying here ‘only a crappy workman blames his tools for a bad job’, if ya want Alex to save creation, maybe you should start by making sure creation is something worth saving in the first place.”

The Archangel stared mutely in shock, the unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach warned him that this previously unfamiliar emotion was likely to become very familiar over the next few years.

One thing Michael was absolutely certain of as he stared at the family in front of him – with parents like Jeep and Charlie, little Alex would never be your average hero.  

He had no idea just how right he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Michael, he does seem to spend most of his time in this series confused - but its such a good state for him ;). 
> 
> On a positive note the muse has definitely settled recently and I've had some great ideas for future chapters. For those of you who like spoilers upcoming chapters include:
> 
> Four Weddings and a Funeral: in which Michael learns far more than he ever wanted to about the human tradition of Marriage and Alex has a bad time with inappropriate coping strategies. 
> 
> The Great Escape that wasn't: in which Whele learns not to poke a sleeping dragon, Michael wakes up in hospital, Furiad is sent to anger management, Becca Thorn has an uncomfortable meeting with the clue bus and Gabriel tries to implement a nefarious plot. 
> 
> Teatime at Tiffany's: in which family reunions are proved to be bad for your health, Alex meets God, gets lost in a garden and has a Lazarus moment. 
> 
>  
> 
> Spin off series idea (for when I've time to actually write it, or if someone else wants to do it for me :P).  
> Alex Through the Looking Glass: in which, Alex falls through a mirror, ends up in an alternate reality where she was born a particularly slow and emotionally unstable man, and has to save the world so she can get back to her own before her Michael destroys reality trying to find her.
> 
>  
> 
> Any thoughts on these ideas, the chapter or if you'd like to see something in one of the future chapters please leave a review :).


	6. Into the Garden of Good and Evil - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If this was the afterlife then it really wasn't living up to Alex’s expectations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY NEW YEAR! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this (slightly) belated New Years present. Part 2 will probably be along some time in Feb.

‘Well’, Alex considered as she took in her new surroundings, this really wasn’t how she had planned to spend her Thursday afternoon. The garden she was in was really very pretty - in a hyper surreal Alice in Wonderland sort of a way – but considering that only moments before her awakening in this brightly coloured paradise she had been curled in agony on the floor of Gabriel’s super-secret hideout, one hand clutching her stomach with the other on Michael’s cheek convinced she was about to die, the young saviour felt her lack of appreciation and confusion at the sudden change in location was on this occasion fully understandable.

This state of befuddled bewilderment was only set to worsen as Alex took stock of her oddly pain free body and the bright crimson stain that stretched from her left hip to just under her right breast. Given that Alex had an only too vivid a memory of her husband’s wing lashing back and catching her diagonally across her body, the steel like primary feathers ripping indiscriminately through both her white t-shirt and the soft skin of her stomach, Alex was unsure whether it was the absence of pain or her blood stained but oddly intact top which bothered her more. Curious, Alex poked her stomach waiting with baited breath for the expected agonising pain to makes itself known after its seemingly inexplicable hiatus.

Nothing happened. 

So Alex poked it again.

Nothing.

And again.

Still nothing.

Giving up the only too well remembered pain as a lost cause, Alex looked around the garden again only to jump in shock at the woman who had suddenly appeared next to the her feet.

“You can keep doing that if you like but the result won’t change” the blond woman said, calmly gesturing towards Alex’s still sodden top.

“What the ever-lasting fuck?”

“Pain doesn’t exist in this place” the woman continued, politely ignoring Alex’s open mouth and shocked exclamation.

“So do, by all means, continue if it helps you but there really is no point”.

Alex stared silently at the new comer.

The woman now visibly unsure offered the unusually quiet chosen one a rough, gardeners hand “Hello, Alex. Need a hand up?” she added with patently false cheer.

Shaking off her shock much like a duck would water off its back, Alex shuddered and came back to awareness with a jolt; grabbing the woman’s hand and heaving herself off the oddly stone free lawn. It was at this point that the penny dropped in the chosen one’s head and she realised exactly why it was the pretty blond before her looked so familiar.

“What the fuck?!?!” the now voluble saviour demanded, waving an eloquent hand at the woman’s face.

“I mean what the fucking fuck!”

“Ummm” the woman started only to be interrupted by Alex’s continued assault on the English language.

“Who the fuck are you? And why the fuck are you wearing my dead mother’s face?”

“Oh good! You do recognise me” the woman replied, reaching out as if to hug the furious woman in front of her but Alex dodged back, almost ending up on the ground again, in her hurry to avoid coming into contact with the spectre she was convinced could not under any circumstances be her mother.

“My mother’s dead! So either I’m dead and this is a really underwhelming version of the afterlife or you’re not my mother.”

“Oh” Not-Charlie replied nonplussed; “Oh, bother it! This isn’t going how I planned at all. I thought it might help to see a familiar face; mortals are very often confused following THE TRANSITION and seeing a loved one seems to make it a bit easier for them. Do you not like it?” Not-Charlie wrung her hands together now looking quite unsure in the pretty flower print dress Alex remembered from the only photo of her mother she had been able to keep.

“Should I change it? Would you feel more comfortable seeing your father? Or how about someone else?”

Confused about what the strange loon in front of her meant by THE TRANSITION and feeling increasingly wrong footed with the offer of her not-mother changing her face like skin and bone were no more difficult to change than your clothes Alex mutely shook her head.

Concerned Not-Charlie stepped forward anxiously with a “oh my dear, I’m so sorry. It’s just I’ve been so excited about finally meeting you and now it’s all going topsy turvy”.

“You… you wanted to meet me” Alex finally croaked out, mind spinning as it tried to make sense of all the madness that had already happened and seemed set to continue happening today.

“Oh yes! Very much so!” Not Charlie clapped her hands together seemingly in joy. “I’ve been waiting a very long time for this conversation”.

“Conversation??...  but who are you?” Alex asked haltingly “cause you sure as shit aren’t my mother – she’s been dead over twenty five years – and even if she hadn’t been, humans don’t offer to change their skin like last year’s fashion.”

“Oh, but you’re even more perfect than I had hoped” the woman replied, confusing Alex even further with the joyful non-sequitur.

Taking pity on her bewildered chosen one, Not-Charlie grabbed her guest’s hand and started pulling an uncooperative Alex towards a garden table that Alex could have sworn wasn’t there a second ago.

“You’re quite right, of course my dear, I’m not actually your mother – well, not your birth mother Charlie anyway. As I said the transition between the mortal world and the divine can be a bit of a shock to mortals and I thought it might be comforting for you to be greeted by a beloved face – you would not believe some of the forms I’ve had to take over the years just to be able to talk to you humans; dead loved ones are considerably less difficult than appearing as a burning bush, or a talking dove or whatever. As ever though, Alex, you continue to defy expectations and the norm.” To Alex’s further confusion the woman now pushing her into one sublimely comfortable garden chair sounded completely delighted at being wrong.

“But _who_ are you?”

Pausing briefly to pour tea into the two delicate china cups resting on the table Not-Charlie continued happily; “I have many names but the one mortals know me best by is… ‘God’”.

Waiting for the anticipated intake of breath the newly named God frowned when it became clear after several minutes that Alex was distinctly unimpressed and under-wowed by this great pronouncement.

Nudging the tea cup towards her chosen one Not-Charlie asked mournfully “not even a little reaction?”

Alex stared levelly at the deity in front of her for a moment before punching her pseudo mother square in the nose, causing her to rock back into the unnaturally silent garden chair.

“Ooooof” Not-Charlie wheezed as she righted herself, grimacing apologetically at the livid chosen one sitting opposite her. “Unfortunately as I’ve already told you pain doesn’t exist here – however, I’ll take that in the spirit in which it was evidently meant. I imagine you’re quite cross with me”.

Fuming, Alex raised one sardonic eyebrow at her maker; “you could say that. I mean you did lumber me with the fate of the god damn world before buggering off and abandoning humanity to be massacred by your bloody angels. So yes, I might be just slightly annoyed about everything. And shouldn’t you be a dude?”

Not-Charlie sighed despondently. “Put like that, everything does seem like it’s in a bit of a pickle. I’m not really one thing or another; infinite potential and all that schtick. The idea that I’m male came from a mistranslation from something Gabriel said – one which turned out to be rather more difficult to correct that I had originally anticipated. My angel’s call me Father but that’s only because it’s the closest human concept to what I am to them. If you tried to translate the angelic concept it would be something along the lines of ‘mother-father-brother-sister-everything-master-director-manager-presence’ which is significantly more difficult for non-divine beings to comprehend then ‘father’”.

 “A pickle? A bit of a pickle?” Alex chortled incredulously. “Over two thousand years of female repression and wars in your name; nearly two thirds of the population of the world wiped out, entire cities lost, millions and millions of people dead  -  and don’t get me started on the damage this has done to your little pets, Michael alone generates enough angst to power bloody Vega and as for Gabriel I’m not there’s a therapist in the universe capable of sorting out his weird psychotic breakdown – and you think this is a ‘bit of a pickle’?!?!

Not-Charlie winced “well” she admitted cautiously, eying her infuriated chosen one with a sensible degree of wariness, “when you put it like that it does sound quite bad”.

“Quite bad?” a sardonic laugh escaped the chosen one. “Earth has gone to hell in a god damn, mother-fucking hand basket and that’s all you can say about this? YOU LEFT! WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING FOR THE LAST THIRTY YEARS? BEEN ON A BLOODY SUMMER HOLIDAY?”

“Not exactly”

“What do you mean by ‘not exactly’ exactly?”

Not-Charlie cringed slightly at the deceptively mild tone.

“With everything going on I thought it might be a good time to go visit my brothers and sisters” she mumbled into her tea cup, defensively adding “it’s been absolutely eons since I last had a chance to spend any time with them and I thought I could kill two birds with one stone – so to speak”.

“Two birds… one stone – what-the-actual-fucking-FUCK?!?!”

With what was obviously forced calmness, god stopped hiding behind her tea cup and faced her chosen one.

“Exactly” she said in a measured, calm voice designed to sooth the now vibrating chosen one.

Alex was silent, mouth hanging open unattractively for some moments before she had gathered her scattered wits sufficiently to answer that outrageous statement.

“I’m sorry” she said at last, voice weak and thready, “I’m having a really, really surreal day and I thought for a moment there you just implied that the reason my whole family is dead, that millions more have died and are going to die is because you decided to go off to a family reunion. I think I need to sit down”.

“You’re already sitting down, Alex” Not-Charlie said in concern as she placed her tea cup back on the table.

Alex’s head flopped back like a marionette whose strings had been abruptly cut. This was turning out to be one of the most surreal, one of the most odd and without doubt one of the worst days in her entire life – and considering the soap opera come perverted fairy-tale her formative years had been that was saying quite something.

Staring at the cloudless, sunless bright blue sky above her Alex decided that she should really have known better – nothing good ever comes of getting out of bed on a Thursday. Especially when the Thursday in questions starts off in Gabriel’s eyrie-nest-lair-base of nefarious operations following a series of admittedly dodgy decision making which had led to her husband flying off in the mother of all strops and her deciding that maybe she ought to have a chat with his estranged twin brother to see if they couldn’t reach some sort of family accord; or, failing that, work out what the cosmic doodles were trying to tell her with their constant shifting.

When the annoying Gabriel-minion had come knocking on her door this morning she should have stood her ground, said “NO!” and gone back to sleep – then none of this wouldn’t have happened. Gabriel wouldn’t have been pawing her tattoos like a demented baboon when Michael (a bemused Raphael in tow) finally turned up from wherever it was he had stormed off to in his man-angel huff (following the blood bath in Senator Thorn’s Doctor Moreau style laboratory), Uriel wouldn’t have seen an opportunity to rile her brothers into the mother of all hissy fits and Alex wouldn’t have felt the need to intervene in the hope that she could stop the angelic siblings from killing each other and thus placing herself by accident directly in the way of her husband’s killer sharp wing when he inevitably lashed out at his twin brother.

This whole day had been a clusterfuck from start to finish and it was showing no signs of stopping now she was apparently dead either – which really struck the chosen one as particularly unfair.

Of all the many and varied ways Alex had imagined her death (from dying of starvation in the storm tunnels as a child to torture at the hands of the angels or even Whele knifing her in the back down a dark corridor somewhere) never had it crossed her mind that it would be a family reunion that finally did for her. In the part of her mind not feeling the sheltering calm of intense shock Alex felt her heart screaming at the injustice of the past day, the past week, the past month and the past twenty-six years of her life to date.

Michael (she believed, thought, hoped?) would be devastated by her death; especially as it was at his own hand – wing – whatever. The human race was now officially doomed and it was all her fault. Well, she considered - forcing herself to sit up with the same tenacious will power that had seen her through being abandoned by her father and nearly dying of pneumonia to living with and later falling in love a hyper protective, obsessive, eons older-and-a-completely-different-species-bossy-boots that was anally retentive about his sock collection and had appalling taste in interior decoration – it wasn’t completely her fault.

It was time to face the music and seeing as she had the unprecedented opportunity to talk to the deity responsible for the catastrophe that had been the last twenty seven years Alex thought she might as well make the most of it and finally find out why she, out of the seven billion people on the planet at the time, had been chosen as God’s cat’s paw. And first on the list of questions she had was what this place was; because she might be dead, but this sure as heck wasn’t the afterlife that Michael had described to her all those years ago and if there was even the slightest chance that she hadn’t passed beyond death’s doors then she was going to fight with everything she had, everything she was and everything she could be to return to life and her Michael. Drudging up the lessons the Archangel had beaten into her brain during childhood, Alex squared her shoulders and prepared to do battle.

 

* * *

 

“If I drink that, will I have to stay here” Alex asked with a nod at the tea cup in front of her.

Her not-mother smiled widely, white teeth biting her lower lip as she beamed at the question; “Bravo, my dear! Bravo indeed. Michael really has taught you well, hasn’t he, for you to recognise the Kuoleman puutarha”.

Alex smiled, it was brief – barely even a flash – but a smile it undoubtedly was; “Well, the sign over there with clear letters saying ‘Styx and Stones’ might have been a bit of a giveaway”.   

Not-Charlie smiled brightly, “You are perfectly safe here, young one. Death really is a rather more complex state than most people realise. This place is a way-station between the two – when people speak of visions experienced during a near death experience this is the place they often see. Ordinarily, you would be correct. Eating or drinking here binds one to this place and makes it impossible to return to the land of the living. No food or drink, however, will bind one of _my_ blood to this place. You will be free to return to your destiny after we have finished our little chat. By which time your markings will have healed you and my recalcitrant children should have had some time to understand the ramifications of their behaviour”.

Alex sat forward in shock “Your blood, what – ”

“Come now, Alex.” The other woman interrupted her. “All of my chosen come from me. Even gods have laws by which they must abide”.

When it became apparent her chosen still didn’t understand not-Charlie continued softly: “Eons ago my siblings and I came together and agreed on a set of inviolate rules by which we had to live. The most important of these was about free-will and self-determination. Once made our creations have free will and the protected right to determine their own path and what they will do with life. My siblings and I must respect this law above all and the consequences that come with it. It has been this way for millennia without count and will be so for countless more in the future. This rule is sacrosanct – although there are no rules, as such, about influencing living beings. That is why we have our chosen. They – you – are our voice and influence in a situation gone awry; a divine instrument you might say.”

“That’s great and all. And I’m sure that knowing they were a ‘divine instrument’ was an immeasurable comfort as your previous ‘chosen’ were dying excruciating deaths” Alex said, sarcasm dripping thickly from her voice “but what’s that got to do with your blood and me somehow not-being-dead-while-not-actually-alive?”

If Alex had been expecting to get a rise out of the deity masquerading as her deceased mother she was to be disappointed as not-Charlie clapped her hands together in glee, laughing jubilantly.

“Oh, my dear one, this is why I picked you. A different hero for a different time – you make waves without even trying. Oh yes! Just look at how you’ve already changed poor, dear Michael; and poor, lost Gabriel – always so angry and resentful – you’re upsetting all of his preconceptions about the universe. You’ll make them see, so clever the both of them and yet so very blind about some things”

Rather unnerved by this unexpected twist in an already problematically overcomplicated plot, Alex started to wonder if there was a way out of this freaky garden. Before she could act on her impulse to run for the hills, however, her tea partner abruptly returned to her original point halting the chosen one half out of her seat as she prepared to make a run for it.  

“The snag is that divine power requires a divine conduit, Alex. My human children are many things but their bodies are not strong enough to withstand this sort of power. Those marks you bear, even in death, are the language of my people. Intelligible only to my siblings and I – to read them, as you have and will, requires our blood. I toyed with the idea of using the angelic language but decided that it would be ultimately self-defeating if one, or even both, sides could read it. The whole point of this exercise, after all, is to foster a new understanding between my children so that they can get along and that will only happen if they both have to rely on the same mediator”.

 Correctly interpreting the increasingly frigid silence of her chosen one, Not-Charlie tried to explain.

“Yes, well” the deity agreed with a somewhat chagrined face. “It didn’t work out quite to plan. I rather thought that more than just Michael would understand that I would hardly go to the bother of creating a new saviour if I intended humanity to be destroyed. Honestly, I think sometimes that logic actually decreases the longer you live. Still, Gabriel’s…oh how did you describe it again – oh yes – his ‘separation anxiety’ and subsequent tantrum did have the positive side-effect of saving the planet from global warming and unsustainable over population, so I suppose that’s something at least.”

“A rather cold comfort that” the saviour in question replied sardonically. “sixty-five per cent of the world’s population might have disappeared but at least the polar bears and penguins are A-okay.”

Watching her companion Alex was struck with the disconcerting realisation that the meddling celestial being in front of her was not as sanguine as she had assumed. In fact, the deity in question was wringing her hands and looking increasingly nervous and upset.

“Are you okay” Alex asked her not-mother quietly, compassion temporarily winning out over her temper in the face of such obvious distress.

“Oh, oh bother it” not-Charlie replied, slapping her hands on her legs in frustration. “I’ve never been any good at explaining things to other life forms. It’s why I created my angels in the first place so that they could deal with the talking and negotiating and explaining nonsense and leave me alone to just get on with creation and managing life, death and physics. Just look at the Old Testament”.

“I suppose that’s where the problem starts,” she added with a tired sigh “my angels were my very first creations; a prototype you might say. All creations have free will, as I said earlier, but the freedom and willingness to exercise it are two very different and very complex things. I made them to be my mediators precisely to avoid the problems my siblings have faced with their children, so that _my_ children would have the space to exercise their power of choice but it all went wrong. They resented you, you know, my human children – the ones who were gifted with the distance which allowed you to have autonomy and free will and the ability to choose whether or not to acknowledge me. For my angels, their very certainty in my existence and close relationship to me became their unwitting prison. My angels obeyed me because they could _not_ disobey and it led to so many problems and unhappiness. They saw what you humans did to your planet, to other creatures and even each other and felt angry at how humans seemed to waste the precious gifts I had given them. But my darlings didn’t understand, and they still don’t. To be free means to live in uncertainty, to be without governance or direct oversight - and that means to be without me. Faith is precious to me precisely because it is without proof or evidence or corroboration. My angels did not have faith, they had certainty, and that certainty trapped them into obedience and obeisance better than any bars or manacles ever could. They hungered for freedom but the only way to grant their desire was to remove myself. I’ve spent thousands of years trying to reach a workable solution – a way for both my children to live as they wish - but with limited success.

Not-Charlie frowned as she picked at the hem of her flowery dress in obvious frustration.

“I’ve grown tired of the constant bickering; the anger and resentment – the endless wars in my name. So I decided it was time to try a new tack. I tried punishment and vengeance – and that didn’t work even if it did keep my angels too occupied to complain. Next I tried love and hope and that seemed to work a bit better for humanity, but it didn’t stop the wars or the bloodshed, and my tolerance upset some of the angels who saw it as unfair. I’ve tried intercession and remaining aloof from my creations; bartering and bribery. I’ve tried to reason and when that failed I’ve resorted to threats and none of it seemed to sort the problems out”.

“And then it struck me. What my children need most is a common solution; something to bring them together for a united purpose. They needed me out of the way and an unbiased mediator to help them reach an understanding – in short they needed you”.

“Me?” Alex queried in confusion, taking a fortifying sip of her stick perfect temperature tea. “I’m fairly certain you couldn’t find a more biased and unmediatory sort of person if you tried. I don’t even like humans and I definitely don’t have warm fuzzy feelings for your angels. Not to mention that my usual way of dealing with conflict is to point a gun at it and shoot until it goes away”.

“Oh, but that’s the beauty of it, don’t you see? You’re not biased - you dislike angels and humans equally” not-Charlie explained gleefully, her whole face lighting up with excitement as she abandoned her dress in favour of reaching across the tea table and grabbing her recalcitrant chosen one’s hands - accidently knocking Alex tea cup over in her enthusiasm.

“Yeah…, I’m don’t think unbiased means what you think it means” Alex replied slowly, doubt clear in her tone, as she tried to politely pull her hands away from where the deity had them trapped. “Out of all the people you could have picked why did it have to be me?”

“My angels have got it into their heads that you were born with my divine presence because you are the ‘last pure heart’ or some such nonsense. The truth is far more simple and less clichéd”.

Alex raised a distinctly unimpressed eyebrow – “and they bought that?” she asked witheringly.

“Look at it this way” not-Charlie continued as if she hadn’t heard Alex’s interruption, “for all the reasons you have to hate angels you still married one and for all you loath the V system in Vega you still fight to save the lives of those who live there and continue to propagate it. You see my creations as they really are – flaws and beauty, mistakes and achievements together. You don’t differentiate between human and angel because of their species but because of their actions. Who better to show my children how to live together than the daughter who can see just how similar they really are. It has nothing to do with purity and everything to do with potential – and you, my dear, are brimming with unbridled potential to change everything!”

Concerned by this latest development Alex was about to start questioning the infuriating deity in front of her as to precisely how she was going to be able to effect this reconciliation between two species who had spent the better part of the last thirty years indiscriminately killing each other when the being in question clapped her hands together, concluding decisively - 

“But enough with the chitchat… I’ve told you all you need to know and you, my dear, have a situation to deal with, a war to stop and a distraught angel to comfort. Tell Michael I approve and that he needs to stop being such a swot about things – Oh, you’re going to have beautiful children. Off you go then, ta-ra, darling, and do enjoy your honeymoon.”

And before Alex could even think to object she found herself propelled out of the garden with what felt like an almighty shove.

 

* * *

 

Awareness returned with an unpleasant jolt.

Who would have guessed that coming back to life could be so damned uncomfortable? One moment Alex had been sitting in that surreal, insect-less garden and the next she was on the floor, looking at the same ostentatiously decorated ceiling she could distinctly remember dying under. The headache currently stamping out an electric tempo behind her eyes was new, however, and bizarrely reassuring because of its novelty. Nothing had hurt in that odd halfway house between life and death and now she was properly alive again her mind playing catch-up as it tried to make sense of all the physical sensations.

Staring up at the ceiling with unfocused eyes Alex reluctantly became aware of the cacophony to her right. The boys were still at it if the clashes and clangs were any indication. Over the din, she could just about hear Raphael screaming for her brothers to stop, Uriel’s acrid recriminations blaming Michael for her death and Gabriel’s taunts, as furniture was overturned and the fight took to air. From Michael himself there was only stony, deeply suspicious silence.

The Archangel would never be the most chatty or loquacious of individuals but it was unlike him to let Gabriel have the last word in anything. This sort of silence was deeply concerning to the Archangel’s long inured wife as it usually meant only one thing – that words had become extraneous and all of his ferocious intellect and ability was now focused on extermination. The last time she had seen her husband like that he had just stabbed three guards and almost strangled Senator Thorn for experimenting on his brethren which was the catalyst that had got them into this mess in the first place. 

“Oh, for the love of god shut up already” Alex yelled as a riot of vivid colours joined the stabbing pain throbbing through her head; all of her high minded intentions to be compassionate and understanding towards the angels rapidly evaporating with the continued racket.

The silence that immediately descended over the room was almost deafening. And heavenly for Alex’s poor abused head.

A soft whoosh of wings and a gentle thud heralded the arrival of at least one angel. 

“Alex… how? You’re alive… but I saw – there was so much blood… Oh, my love… you had no pulse… I checked” Michael stumbled, unusually inarticulate, as trembling fingers touched her face.

“I hurt far too much to be dead” came the reassuringly sardonic response from his wife as she quirked one of her characteristic half smiles at the distraught angel.

“Brother… how?” Raphael asked, her voice a hushed, awe soaked whisper. “We all saw the damage your wing did. She _should_ be dead – she _was_ dead!”

“I… I don’t-“ Michael started to reply before his attention was distracted by the woman who was now using his coat as leverage to pull herself up.

“Sweet monkey gods, that bloody hurt! I’m going to be one big bruise tomorrow and you mister have some serious grovelling to do. How many bloody times have I told you not to wave your wings around inside? Especially while there are squishy humans in the vicinity, hmmmmm? See if I come to anymore of your family reunions! And I thought my family was bad; yours are totally bonkers, the lot of them. I expect chocolate ice cream on tap – and lots of it! With jelly beans and crappy tv and you’re not allowed to complain or change the channel and then hide the remote, okay?”

“He killed you, and other than fetching food and putting up with your apparently questionable choice in entertainment, that’s it… that’s the extent of his punishment?” Gabriel inquired in a shocked voice as he and the silent Uriel landed with considerably more grace next to the now sitting now chosen one.

“Dude, of course it is. He’s my husband! I’ve promised to love, honour and forgive his fuck-ups – that’s what marriage is – and anyway, I was only a little bit dead.”

“I’m sorry, but how can you be ‘only a little bit dead’? Life and death are binary, not a sliding scale” Uriel interjected before Gabriel could start another argument.

Not entirely certain of the mechanics of _how_ she had been brought back to life, Alex opted to concentrate on answering the why, or perhaps that should be the who instead. “Oh, that’s easy” Alex proclaimed with amusement “when you’ve got God on your side”.

You could have heard a pin dropping from the sudden silence.

 

 

To be Continued

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the chapter. As ever, anything you would like to add, see or comment on drop a note in the pretty box below this one :). 
> 
>  Kuoleman puutarha is a Finnish painting by symbolist painter Hugo Simberg.

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya everyone. 
> 
> I'm not totally sure where I'm going with this, or if it will go any further. This little fliclet was written for a friend of mine who asked me to write a version of Dominion where Alex is a girl. My friend made the very valid observation that almost all of the chosen ones/saviours in tv and books are men; it's really rare to have the world saved by a girl (with the obvious exception of Buffy).
> 
> I love the premise that Dominion is based around but I wonder how it would have turned out if they had taken the less worn path and made Alex female - because I rather suspect it would have made the TV show so much more interesting. 
> 
> Anyway, I would love to hear your comments and if anyone would like to borrow this idea and run with it please feel free :).


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